DISQUS

RC · 2 years ago

Matt,

I don't think power surfers really use the arrows as a right click on a page gets the back/forward command. Also I doubt any power surfer would click a link but would open it under a new tab to view later. I typically open several links of interest in separate tabs and then then view them sequentially.

You really might want to check on how these 'power surfers' really use the browser.

Matt Marshall · 2 years ago

Sure, that's fair.

However, clicking on link to open it under a new tab is still a click. The preview lets you dispense of it immediately if its no good..instead of having to click again and having to close it(as a tab requires)

Cooliris does require a change in behavior, though and the differences are small enough that it may not push people to switch. Afterall, the mousing process takes a second to do too.

Iain Wright · 2 years ago

Needs IE7 support!!!!

Cooliris Team · 2 years ago

Thanks, Matt for writing about Cooliris Previews and our new stack feature in our Firefox version. Much appreciated!

Interesting note is that many "power surfers", including myself, use Cooliris Previews not just as "previewer" per se, but also a "secondary browser window" for reading or skimming the web. For example, one can lock the preview pane to the right side of the browser window, and then speed through blogs, Google results, or news search results by simply mousing over the links that are on the left side of the browser window. With a broadband connection, one also can turn on "prefetching" so that subsequent links preview even faster.

Yes, we do need to make an IE7 version. We hope to do so once we've optimized the FF version. As you know. we're also plugging hard at our PicLens product also, which you also kindly blogged about a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks, again.

Kind regards,
Alec & The Cooliris Team

Jason Fields · 2 years ago

Matt,

I appreciate the mention of Snap Shots in comparison to Cooliris. I wanted to point out some of the more 'interactive' aspects of the Snap Shot product available to end users right now. The small 'preview' you mentioned is only the tip of the iceberg.

Snap Shots enhance the link experience and are much more useful to end users, not only in gaining more information on a site being linked to but delivering rich media content as well. We currently have upwards of 2MM sites and publishers using the product and deliver more than 14MM Snap Shots to end users each day.

I wanted to take a moment to review some of the most notable enhancements to the Snap Shots product that may contribute to your readers awareness of what our product is capable of...

• Snap Shots performance is superior and provides users with instant gratification compared to Cooliris. Our product utilizes a huge DB of web site images (over 400MM and growing) and data as opposed to Cooliris which loads HTML pages in real time and depends on the web sites availability, responsiveness and a users connection speed.

• The smaller Snap Shot size is our default and can be increased via our magnifying glass interface toggle or via the options menu.

• Snap Shots can automatically change its content inline to match the linked content – the iPod wikipedia entry is very different than the iPod product page which is very different than the AAPL stock chart, and the Snap Shot for each link and type of content is the essence of the page or file being linked to.

• VideoShots, AudioShots & PhotoShots allows users to stream rich media content while still browsing the site they are on. It saves time and creates a more qualified browsing experience.

• RSS Shots enable any blog with a recognized RSS Feed to toggle between an image preview or the actual RSS Feed of the linked blog.

All in all our product adds rich visual context to any and all outbound hyperlinks. This leads to greater visitor satisfaction and a satisfied visitor is more likely to come back again and again.

I look forward to any feedback you and/or your readers may provide to assist in improvements to the Snap Shots product.

Thanks again for your consideration and thoughts.

Jason Fields
Product Evangelist, Emerging Technology
www.Snap.com

MonsterEd · 2 years ago

You guys should all mention the great plugin from Girafa.com, which was probably the pioneer in this field, and has to my opinion the best solution of all three

www.pinkflask.com · 1 year ago

Snap shots is great.

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